Belize: Currency & Financial System

Belize's currency has passed through several monetary regimes since the colonial era. British sterling coinage became legal tender in 1825, though local merchants continued to favor more practical exchange rates, and an international silver crisis in 1873 drove sterling from circulation in favor of the Guatemalan silver peso. The colony then known as British Honduras shifted to a currency based on the U.S. dollar, issuing its first government banknotes in 1894 under a Board of Commissioners of Currency. The territory was renamed Belize in 1973, and its currency took the Belize dollar name the same year.

The Belize dollar has been fixed to the U.S. dollar at a rate of two Belize dollars per U.S. dollar since the Monetary Authority of Belize adopted the peg on May 11, 1976, replacing an earlier link to British sterling that had eroded the currency's value through postwar devaluations. The Central Bank of Belize, established in 1982, took over currency issuance the following year and has maintained the rate ever since. As of 2026, the peg remains in force; the Central Bank marked its fiftieth anniversary in May of that year, crediting conservative reserve management for preserving the exchange rate through global financial crises and natural disasters.

International financial services grew into a notable segment of the economy after Belize passed an International Business Companies Act in 1990, modeled on similar legislation in the British Virgin Islands and allowing companies to incorporate within days under minimal disclosure requirements. More than 15,000 international business companies registered in the law's first decade, complemented by a 1992 Trusts Act covering both domestic and offshore trusts. In a more recent change to its physical currency, the Central Bank unveiled a new banknote series in January 2025 replacing the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II with images of Belizean national heroes.